Scouting anyone?

[Canadian]

My dad taught me some serious lessons. That same campout, four of us were walking down the road looking for water. One of the boys got very wet (he thought he saw a wolverine and jumped into the bush, which was actually a puddle). So, I looked around, saw a construction trailer, told the other boys to shelter there, and I walked out for help.

Luckily that trailer was manned, and the occupant had a washer/dryer. When the relief party came back, they had dried his jeans, and were sitting around in a warm trailer. I am very glad things worked out that way, because it was very, very cold and we could have had a much more serious outcome.

Lessons learned? Don't get wet, if you get wet, make haste for your bivouac. Also, if that's impossible, be creative. My dad told me I'd done exactly the right thing, because I went for help rather than standing around saying, "You dummy. Now you're wet and freezing". When I got back to the campsite, we got together some dry clothes and set out by vehicle to rescue him. We were lucky that time.

Dad always told me, if you're in the bush and something goes wrong, you've got to fix it. Nobody is going to magically come along and do things for you.

 

[RobFedoraField]

Eagle Scout Troop 285 Tipp City, Ohio
Den Leader Pack 4076 York, NY

best experiences of my life!

 

[rkwilker]

Eagle Scout here.

 

[Trombone]

Troop (and Pack) 49 North St. Paul, MN. Scouting from Tiger Cubs to Life Scout at the age of 18. A fantastic experience but I also agree with all the comments on the experience is only as good as leadership. What some people don't know is that the major difference between Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts is that Cubs is adult led and Boy Scouts is Boy led. In my later years (actually recently as I am in college now) as I gained different leadership positions including Patrol and Senior Patrol Leader, my troop tried to become a boy-led troop, my positions became more and more connected to the planning part. But unfortunately much of the time my fellow scouts did not want to take on the roles as planners and preparers. During my leadership years I feel that I have been part of the movement to do more things and when I stepped down when I turned 18 I turned the troop over to a very confident person who I believe will improve the troop. When we talk about some of the issues of Scouting, lets please remember that the main purpose of Scouting is to promote leadership skills and that sucess is proportional to the amount of leadership demonstrated by the scouts themselves.

I will always cherish my experiences in Scouting including a Kayaking trip in the Apostle Islands and 2 weeks Backpacking at Philmont Scout Reservation in New Mexico among many campouts

 

[bsaguy]

Absolutely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love Scouts. Hands down the best youth character, leadership, ad values program available for boys.

I earned my Eagle in 1973. Adult volunteer since 1982. Currently Scoutmaster (7th year) for troop at our church. Troop is celebrating 75th anniversary next year and I am putting together a 1940 Scoutmaster uniform for the event.

One son got Eagle in 2010 and next one just has project to go.

I've been camping all over including Scoutmaster for National Jamboree in 2010, 85 mile trek at Philmont in 2011 and 9 day backpacking trip last summer in North Cascades National Park east of Seattle.

Great way to spend time with your sons, their friends, and dads.

I have made great adult and youth friends and wouldn't take less than $1 million for these experiences.


BSA Guy

 

[Mr. Godfrey]

Dad always told me, if you're in the bush and something goes wrong, you've got to fix it. Nobody is going to magically come along and do things for you.

Very wise words, not easily understood until its too late.

Great little tale too.

 

[bsaguy]

Eagle Scout, 1973. Adult volunteer since 1982. Currently Scoutmaster for the troop at our church where my older son earned his Eagle in 2010 (+ bronze palm), and younger son has only to complete his project to earn his.

best times I have had in the outdoors and with my two sons have been Scout-related. Some camping trips with crazy weather are very memorable.

Also, I was a Scoutmaster for centennial jamboree in 2010, led crew for 90 mile trek at Philmont in 2011, and backpacking trip to Seattle/North Cascades National Park in 2012.

I have logged enough miles going and coming on trips to circle the globe at the Equator.

Scouts is hands-down, no competition, the best program around (outside of church) for development of character, leadership, and citizenship. I wish those who do not agree with our values would just leave us alone and start their own groups, but they are always trying to bring others to their level.

Remarkable that the institution has survived with program tweaks for over 100 years. At their core, boys are boys and they want to tackle adventure in the outdoors.

I love Scouts.

 

[bsaguy]

For all you current Scouters and former Scouts.

Check out the 1950's dress coat and campaign hat (1960's-1970's) I have for sale in the classifieds.

Just what you want to relive the Golden Age of Scouting.

Here's the link: http://www.thefedoralounge.com/show...2-regular-Vintage-BSA-Boy-Scout-Adult-Uniform

BSAGuy

 

[SMUPhil]

I was involved in Cub Scouts and Webelos with my best friends and loved it. I moved on to Boy Scouts, but the troop organization just seemed to fall off heavily. Looking back on it, maybe the leaders were trying to instill more of a 'boy-led' troop, but there was little direction given. I desperately wanted the 'authentic experience' but we only had an occasional campout and didn't seem to do much else. We met in the church basement, and had a storage room packed FULL of cool, old stuff going back to the founding of the troop like framed photos, flags, banners, camping equipment, etc. Unfortunately, they rarely took anything out of the storage room and we spent most meetings just talking. I think I had enough when they promised we could all buy/wear the Smokey Bear hats if we sold X number of Christmas trees (our big fundraiser). We met our goal, but somehow we ended up with a box of regular baseball caps.

Despite all this, I do plan to be a scout volunteer soon and intend to make it legitimate for the boys involved!

 

[vintage.vendeuse]

I'm a former Junior and Cadette Girl Scout. Both my brothers were scouts and my father was one of their leaders. My family has a strong background in scouting. Dad was with the Polish scouts "Szare Szeregi" ("Grey Ranks") and fought with his group during the Warsaw uprising. His main duty was as a "sewer rat", delivering supplies - and people - through the Warsaw sewer system. Dad was captured and spent the last year of the war in a German POW camp.

Anyway, both his parents were heavily into the Polish scouting movement. Here is an article about his mother, my grandmother (Google translate is a bit confusing and unfortunately I don't speak Polish):

http://translate.google.com/transla...sze%20Instruktorki/mydlarzowa.htm&prev=search

 

[Mr. Godfrey]

I was involved in Cub Scouts and Webelos with my best friends and loved it. I moved on to Boy Scouts, but the troop organization just seemed to fall off heavily. Looking back on it, maybe the leaders were trying to instill more of a 'boy-led' troop, but there was little direction given. I desperately wanted the 'authentic experience' but we only had an occasional campout and didn't seem to do much else. We met in the church basement, and had a storage room packed FULL of cool, old stuff going back to the founding of the troop like framed photos, flags, banners, camping equipment, etc. Unfortunately, they rarely took anything out of the storage room and we spent most meetings just talking. I think I had enough when they promised we could all buy/wear the Smokey Bear hats if we sold X number of Christmas trees (our big fundraiser). We met our goal, but somehow we ended up with a box of regular baseball caps.

Despite all this, I do plan to be a scout volunteer soon and intend to make it legitimate for the boys involved!

I do hope you do manage to become a scout leader, you can at least bring some of that old program back for the scouts.

I always try to include some form of traditional scouting in our programe and its funny how things move so fast. For communication skills a old mobile phone was used to send text, the phone is about 5-6 years old and they struggled as they are all used to the modern touch screen.

However, when it came to morse code and semaphore, they soon picked it up.

Pioneering skills, camp craft & cooking, woodcraft map readings skills are taught but you still have to include some of the modern things that appeal to children.

But best of luck and I am sure you will enjoy the experience. I always wear my campaign hat out and about on camp, just not on official duties (great shame).

 

[cm289]

I just purchased this one from eBay, awaiting it's arrival. Made by Sigmund Eisner (1930s?). Now the search is on for a matching button to replace the one that's missing.

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[Mr. Godfrey]

Cm289 very nice looking jacket and a great find.

 

[Bjorn240]

I'm the Cubmaster of Pack 2 in Chappaqua, NY. 54 boys in the pack this year, and we're one of three packs in town. This was last weekend at our local scout reservation. Not the biggest fish, but it got the boys enthusiastic, as it proved there were fish down there somewhere! I didn't tell them that 10% of the fisherman catch 90% of the fish...

 

[BlueTrain]

I was a scout for a while and enjoyed the hiking and camping very much. But none of my friends were scouts, so I lost interest after a while. I was already doing plenty of family camping and frankly, the scouts didn't offer that much more.

Our son and daughter went through scouting, which I'm sure I enjoyed more than they did. The week at Webelos was really a lot of fun for both of us but it's a lot of work for the leaders. You're essentially hosting a party every week. But the other adults and the kids were all great and some of the kids especially were well-behaved, smart and even pretty cool, so we got a lot out of it. But my son didn't want to bridge to Boy Scouts. We had an astronaut speak at one of our banquets. It's been so long I've forgotten all the names. Blue & Gold?

 

[cm289]

From today’s Webelos/Wolf dens hike into the mountains-

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[52Styleline]

There were no scout troops anywhere near where I grew up. An aunt sent me a gift subscription to Boy's Life and I learned there was a thing called Lone Scout Program that I could sign up for if I wanted to get a badge, etc. but since I lived in a logging camp and could be into the deep woods with a half-mile walk, I decided not to spend the money on membership. My friends and I just hiked, fished, and camped as it struck our fancy without adult leadership.

 

[Ticklishchap]

I was a Scout from ages 11-13. There was a Scout Troop at the boys' preparatory school I attended at that age before passing the entrance exam to the boarding school for older boys (many of you will know a bit about the English system from movies, books, etc.). As a Scout I enjoyed the hiking, camping and expanding my general knowledge (we learned a lot about clouds and weather, for instance, and other aspects of Geography). It laid the foundations for a lot of interests that have persisted over the years and was a lot of fun as well. Graduating to the (I'll try to translate this into US terms) private high school, I concentrated on other activities, for example playing Rugger most days and joining the Corps. I could have continued with scouting in the school holidays but joined a Rugby club for local boys instead.

 

[HanauMan]

I was in the Boy Scouts for a couple of years when I lived in Bavaria in the 1970s.

Transatlantic Council, Troop 133 (Bad Kissingen, Germany), Raccoon Patrol.

I am lucky enough that I still have most of the stuff, except for the uniform itself. As we were military kids much of our camping stuff came from our fathers. I don't think we ever had more than twenty kids in the troop and the scout leaders were all serving soldiers. It was a great time. I used that belt kit for when we did Volksmarches. (the map top left was one such Volksmarch we did in 1978).

1 by Al Sutherland, on Flickr

 

[Mr. Godfrey]

I was in the Boy Scouts for a couple of years when I lived in Bavaria in the 1970s.

Transatlantic Council, Troop 133 (Bad Kissingen, Germany), Raccoon Patrol.

I am lucky enough that I still have most of the stuff, except for the uniform itself. As we were military kids much of our camping stuff came from our fathers. I don't think we ever had more than twenty kids in the troop and the scout leaders were all serving soldiers. It was a great time. I used that belt kit for when we did Volksmarches. (the map top left was one such Volksmarch we did in 1978).

1 by Al Sutherland, on Flickr

Great that you still have all that stuff, I only have a cub cap and troop scarf, not sure what happened to my jumper, my edition of scouting for boys has a broken spine so it just sits on the bookshelf, I have another edition when I wish to refer to it.

Thanks for sharing the photo.